Friday, February 15, 2013

All 19 drivers participating in Friday’s first practice session in preparation for Saturday's Sprint Unlimited at Daytona came in with hopes of finding out more about how their new Gen-6 cars would handle in the draft. But within the first 10 minutes of the session, a small pack of cars racing together got tangled up in an accident. Matt Kenseth lost control of his car and wrecked four other cars making it look similar to what happened in the preseason test session at Daytona in January.

The learning curve will carry on into the second practice session, and then all 45 drivers attempting to qualify for the Daytona 500 will get some practice time on Saturday. Drivers were left with many of their questions coming into Friday’s practices without any answers. When they resumed the session, every driver either ran laps alone or were in a very cautious pack of five cars.

Joey Logano mentioned that the Gen-6 car didn’t open the hole in the draft as well as the older cars and that it pushed like an ARCA car.

Some drivers like Martin Truex Jr. packed it up and said they didn’t need anymore practice because its not worth risking a car. He didn’t run in the second session. Neither did six other drivers.